Eek! ... I need to catch up with blogging my TAST stitches ...

... because I just realised that I am more than 20 weeks behind!

(where on Earth did the middle half of the year go anyway?!?!!!?)

I have actually kept up with doing them for most of the time (just not the last few, but I have a perfect catch up oportunity this coming weekend), but the last TAST stitch that I posted about was week 20 - butterfly chain ... and I said something about having some more photos on the camera ... not sure where though - just looked in my photos and didn't see any more ... which probably means I only thought I had taken photos of the other ones ... I actually don't remember exactly what other ones I was talking about now anyway, but there are a couple more on the same bit of felt as some other stitches ... which I have not taken a photo of yet (but I am just about to scan it, and a few others, once I work out what order they go in ;-)

Week 21 was crossed buttonhole, and this is what I ended up with for that one:

... and that seems to be where I didn't get around to taking any more photos - LOL

but I did find a photo of some work I did on another person's block from the needlecase round robin I was in (finished now - got mine back a couple weeks ago, but I plan to try and make it into something soon, then post all the photos of it at once) ...

anyway - this is my work on someone's block:

... as you can see, I did some feather stitch (which I nearly always do on stuff) and a spider/web (which I also do lots of) and some couching (which I also use a lot) ... and one other stitch that I didn't know how to do (or that it even existed) until it was the week 19 Tast stitch! (Basque stitch)

Week 22 was Satin stitch ... I must have been busy/lazy that week - all I did was add a little bit on the side of a bit of other stitching that I have already blogged about - it is on the bit of felt on the top left in this scan I just did:

mmmmm look at all those dog/cat hairs! LOL

(click on the image for a closer look and once the picture is full size you WILL see the hairs! lol)

Next to that (top right) is wheat ear stitch (week 23) and long and short stitch (week 25). Week 24 was French knots ... there are quite a few knots on my bits of stitching but I am not sure if any of them are French ones ... I think I might have done one or 2 on one of the bits of felt I have just scanned (possibly this one with the wheatear on it) - but on most of them I have done what I usually do instead of French knots - and that is Collonial knots (which I learnt to do when I did some candlewicking, because it is often used in that) ... it is a bit hard to tell them apart once they are worked, because the end result looks almost the same - unless they are French knots and I did them - in which case they either vanish into the fabric or look demented - which is why I use collonial knots instead - LOL.

The bottom 2 bits are my messing around with half chevron stitch and bullion knots (weeks 26 and 27).

Now ... week 28 and 29 were sheaf stitch and arrow stitch ... where the heck is that?

oh - here it is - on the bit of felt I did oyster stitch on (top bit in this next scanned image) ... along with some more crossed buttonhole, and the "missing" butterfly chain stitch ... the butterfly on the top left is butterfly chain with some buttonhole stitch etc, the fan on the bottom left corner is sheaf stitch and fly stitch ... the row of "butterflies" along the bottom are sheaf stitch, the white scorpion looking thing in the middle is butterfly chain with chain stitch for the tail, and the weird looking yellow bit amongst all those is my fiddling with crossed buttonhole and whatever else it kind of turned into.

the other bits of felt are the bit with curly ferny looking things that I have blogged about before (black bit on left) - but I have since added the red flowers to the "Fleur de Whatsits" on the bottom, and the yellow bit with black stitching is Buttonhole wheels, cast on stitch, (weeks 30 and 31) and a bit more arrow stitch and a few other fiddly bits that grew out of the buttonhole wheels ... and some more cast on stitch and a few other white bits around the edge. Under that (white on black felt) is a variation on the buttonhole wheel that I turned into a snail.

This bit is my playing with Crested chain (week 32) in white thread (mine look like little people with one arm in the air like they are throwing something - so I gave them balls ;-) then I did a tiny bit of each of the next 4 week's stitches (week 33 scroll stitch, week 34 Portuguese knotted stem stitch, week 35 Shisha Stitch, week 36 Cable Chain stitch)

I was a bit busy doing other things to have time to do as much as I wanted with these stitches (and a few of the earlier ones too for that matter) but I am going to the Canberra Quilters retreat this weekend and we have to take hand sewing (no machines allowed) so it will be the perfect chance to take all my printed out instructions and my felt and threads/etc and have a good fiddle around with a few of those I want to do more with, and also catch up with the last few that I have not done - once I realised I could catch up on the retreat I decided to do a few other things instead of doing the last 2 or 3 stitches ... like coming in here and posting these pictures/etc to my blog - LOL

This is all I did for rice stitch and square boss stitch (week 37) - I did a bit of one of them, on top of the other one! I like what I got, so I will have to have another play with this one too.

here is the bit of felt that one is on ... some spare space to start on the 3 stitches for the 3 weeks I am behind (and the one posted tomorrow will make it 4). There is a bit more cable chain on here too.

And now ... I think it is time I went to bed before the sun comes up!

(the time on this post will probably show up as the time I started doing it ... but it is actually about 4:25am!!! oops?)

btw, I should have been sorting out/tidying up/etc in my sewing room/the rest of the house today, but I was feeling lazy so I sat and crocheted a shawl ... start to finish! LOL ... how long did it take me? - er ... most of a one day cricket match, part of the news/etc and one episode of Mythbusters ... lol

(I will blog some pictures/etc of it later, once I have taken some ...)

goodnight ... er ... good morning?

Beep beep beep ...

50 years ago yesterday (oops - bit late - I found out about it when there was only 5 minutes of "yesterday" left!), The Russians "threw" a basketball sized object into orbit ...


... I wasn't born yet so I guess that is why I don't remember it, but apparently everyone and their dog sat around their radios listening for the "beep beep beep" being broadcast from Sputnik as it orbited the Earth ...

... the world sure has changed a bit since then ... LOL

Technological change ... who would have thought I would be writing all this waffle that anybody in the world (well - anyone with an internet connection) could read?

Social change ... ditto - and who would have thought I would have more friends who I had met online than in the real world?

... and now kids don't walk to their mate's places to see if they can play with them - they IM each other or ring on their mobile phones!

and Climate change ... which is probably as inevitable as the other 2 I have mentioned, but the likely outcome is something we can forsee - if we don't do something to at least slow down the change then things are not going to be as good as if we do ... I don't want to see what happens if/when the ice caps melt ... or worse ... especially if it is my fault ... and you and I can do stuff to help ... not only to stop global warming, but to do the right thing for our planet in many ways ... we as a species don't have to keep taking more than we give ...

No - I am not telling you all to sell up and live in a hippy commune and become raging greenies ... just that we can all do a few things to be less wasteful/nicer to the environment/etc ... and a lot of them can save you money and/or are healthier for you anyway.



"Huh?" ? ... how did I just manage to use Sputnik to introduce a post about the new "save the planet" thingy I just put in my side-bar? ... er ... it just fell out of the keyboard ... LOL

pity my promised post with pictures/scans of my TAST stitches, and/or a post or 3 about some more of the other stuff I have been doing lately, has not "fallen out of the keyboard" yet ... sigh ...
like some shampoo advert used to say - "it won't happen overnight, but it will happen"
... eventually ...

I will dig out all the bits of stitching, and work out what is what, sometime in the next few days ... then I can scan the bits I have not got images of (and also those that I have taken photos of, but have not blogged yet - because scans will probably work better than the photos I have taken ;-) then I can finally get around to blogging about them, and while I am at it I can make a note of what ones I wanted to do some more with - then I will have at least one thing organised to take and work on at the quilting retreat I am going to the weekend after this one ... LOL

... Most of my stuff I want to do/finish, and that would be easy to organise, requires either using the sewing machine for at least the next part of it - and machines are not allowed on this retreat - they made that rule because sewing machines are too noisy for people to be able to talk/etc ... (or sleep - the bedrooms are all around the outside of the central area where we sit and sew/etc.) or it requires me to dig out stuff from my stash/etc as i go ... which is a bit hard if I am not at home with my stash ... so I need to hurry up and find/organise some stuff I want to work on, something that requires some hand sewing/etc, that I can find and take all the bits I am likely to need for it ... stuff like my TAST stitching, and hopefully some crazy quilting if I can find what fabrics I want to use and machine piece the block(s) to do it on before I go ...


- I have a few stitches that I had more ideas for but didn't have time to play with at the time, and I will also have about 4 weeks of stitches to catch up on - yes I am actually more behind than I have been all year - I have not done the last couple weeks stitches yet, and I have not even looked at what this week is - oops! (I have now - just went and looked ;-) but I only let myself get behind a couple weeks now because I have been busy doing other things, and it will give me some stuff to work on at the quilt retreat ;-) and if I don't catch up there, I will be able to catch up in the next few weeks anyway, because I won't be busy doing stuff for quilt shows/exhibitions/etc or whatever ... and I probably won't be doing a lot of other quilty stuff because I intend to finish sorting out my sewing room ... so the TAST stitches will be a good thing to do in front of the TV when I want to sew instead of crochet ... lol



hmmm ... now ... shall I do a full circle back to Sputink? - I bet a lot more people were tuned in and listening to the "beep beep beep" of Sputnik than are reading this blog (I guess my blog is not new and interesting like Sputnik was ... it's like most of the "space junk" up there now - just another blob in the crowd - lol) ... in fact I am quite surprised that there are one or 2 of you still checking in here and posting comments! (even my Mum never gets around to reading it! ... but then she is on dial up internet and not really into reading blogs and stuff ... she probably would read it if I remembered to e-mail her the posts ;-)

space junk ... hmmm ... could be another quilt idea there ... lol

(or maybe I could do a freeform crochet thingy?)

maybe I should go to bed ... before the sun comes up or something ... LOL

but before I go - methinks this post needs a picture or 2 ...

Seeing I have been waffling on about being green and re-using stuff and whatever - here is a picture of my plastic shopping bag that I crocheted from cut up plastic shopping bags:


I actually made this a year or more ago ... I gathered up a colourful collection of plastic bags from the supermarket, cut them into strips - across the bag so the strips are actually loops - that way I could loop them together to create some plastic "yarn" to crochet with ... then I just started crocheting until I ended up with a bag (pattern? ... wot's a pattern? - sorry - didn't use one! ... bit I could probably write one for this bag if people want me to ... just not sure when ... lol)

And ... just to show that I do sometimes make more "normal" stuff:

This is a photo of me (taken during the TASDA exhibiton a couple of weeks ago) wearing a beanie and scarf that I crocheted, using some "ice coloured" yarn ... no, I didn't use a pattern for those either ... lol
I didn't model those in the fashion parade, someone else did, but I got someone to take a photo in case they sold ... they didn't ... sigh ...
btw, I also made the patchwork/quilted vest that I am wearing in the photo ... the blue fabric was a packet of scraps that a well known Aussie quilter, Margaret Rolfe, posted to me (we know each other becasue we are both members of Canberra Quilters, and she knew I liked doing stuff with odd little scraps, so she sent them to me) ... the weird thing was - I made the vest, and finished the last bit of it off in a hurry so I could wear it to the opening of a quilt exhibition ... and when I was looking at the quilts I realised that one of them was actualy the quilt that the scraps were from!